Coco Gauff shared that Zendaya’s film Challengers isn’t all that far off from the reality of the tennis world — at least in terms of hookups.
“We’re all traveling from country to country with each other, basically staying in the same hotels, so there’s room for [encounters] to happen,” Gauff, 20, told Bustle in an interview published on Wednesday, September 4, adding that she has “never been a part of anything” similar to the events in the 2024 tennis film.
Challengers follows the love triangle between a former tennis prodigy turned coach (Zendaya), her low-circuit tennis player ex-boyfriend (Josh O’Connor) and her tennis champion husband (Mike Faist) across 13 years of their shared relationship.
Following the film’s release in April, Gauff went live via Instagram that month to share her thoughts on the accuracy of the film.
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“The tennis actually wasn’t bad in the movie,” she shared. “There is a CGI ball, but the actual strokes and stuff were actually pretty damn [accurate].”
Gauff went on to praise Zendaya, 28, Faist, 32, and O’Connor, 34, for doing a “good job studying and doing the game correctly,” noting that her coach, Brad Gilbert, gave the stars their tennis training — and had a cameo in the film.
“The German dude helping Art with his serve, that’s my coach. Future Oscar nominee Brad Gilbert,” she joked. “I don’t even think it’s actually him speaking in the movie, I’m pretty sure they put a voiceover over him, but he did a little thing.”
While Gauff really enjoyed the film and its portrayal of the tennis world, Zendaya has previously discussed how much behind-the-scenes work went into the movie because of her initial lack of knowledge about the sport.
“I didn’t know anything about tennis, to be honest. So I just threw myself in there,” the Euphoria actress told Variety in April. “I’ve pretty much seen every video, every match that’s online, every compilation, every interview. It became my thing. Anytime I wasn’t at work, I was watching something.”
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Zendaya noted that her social media feeds became “full of tennis stuff” — and it was hard not to compare herself to real-life players.
“I’m learning how to play tennis, and I’m seeing like these little kids on Instagram — like, 10 — absolutely professional. I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m terrible!’” she explained. “It really is one of those sports that anyone who’s really great at it, they start so young. I was obviously very intimidated by the fact that I was stepping into something I really didn’t understand.”
Although it was hard to learn a new sport, Zendaya shared that it was a “special time” getting to learn a “new skill” and a way to really “dig into the material.”
“It felt like summer camp. We’d wake up — Mike, Josh and myself on these three courts side-by-side — and we’d just practice for however many hours, and then we’d go and work out, and then we’d have a break, and we’d come back and the second half of the day was rehearsal,” she told the outlet.